Play Ball! MLB Spring Training Scores Big Time in The Local Economy

Spring Training baseball under the warm Arizona sun has been a tradition for devoted fans since 1947, when just two teams, the Cleveland Indians and the New York Giants, came here to prepare for the rigors of the long regular season. Today, 15 teams train in the Phoenix metropolitan area in the greatest concentration of professional baseball facilities found anywhere in the United States. For visitors, the Cactus League couldn't be more convenient, with short drive times between ballparks and a full range of hotel, dining and shopping amenities. Truly, the Cactus League is the premier destination for baseball lovers.

The stats are in and they are good! According to a pair of studies  by Governor Doug Ducey and members of the non-profit Cactus League Baseball Association, spring training baseball has become a driving force in Arizona's economy. The studies estimate spring training teams and the ballparks they play in now annually generate more than $809 million in economic impact for the state.

Celebrate A Day at the Diamond at Sloan Park

Post Date:02/18/2016 10:05 AM

Celebrate the return of spring training baseball with A Day at the Diamond Saturday, Feb. 27 from 12:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. at Sloan Park, 2330 W. Rio Salado Parkway, and surrounding areas at the spring training home of the Chicago Cubs.

The FREE event will include numerous fun activities for the whole family:
• Baseball clinics for the kids
• Family fun and games
• Bounce houses and a zip line
• Obstacle course
• Live music featuring Georgia Chrome and Rock Lobster
• Food and beverages for sale at Sloan Park concession stands
• Sports card show
• Chicago Cubs team shop will be open to sell souvenirs
• Chicago Cubs box office will be open and selling tickets to spring training games

Sponsors of A Day at the Diamond include the Chicago Cubs; Visit Mesa; City of Mesa; Mesa Riverview; Mesa Parks, Recreation and Community Facilities and Extra Innings East Valley.

Public Information and Communications
Contact: Steve Wright
Tel. 480-644-2069 steven.wright@mesaaz.gov

Complete Schedule
http://mlb.mlb.com/chc/mesa/schedule.jsp

college baseball coming to Sloan Park, Feb. 19-21!

Come on out and watch Northwestern University take on the University of Nevada for four games, Feb. 19-21, at Sloan

COPS > No Not The Men-In-Blue . . . March Event @ The Old Sunkist Factory on Broadway



Just having' fun again. . . for only one night, Sat 19 March 2016,  the former packinghouse for the Mesa Citrus Growers Association located at 254 W Broadway will host a paranormal event for an evening of interactive ghost communication experiments with devices led by experienced paranormal investigators. Together the group will attempt to make 'Ghostly Contact' with the dead!

Husband & Wife Professional Ghost Hunters Jay & Marie Yates lead a Crew of Experienced Paranormal Investigators into some of the darkest corners of the Desert Southwest.

http://www.thecopscrew.com/

 

Their mission is to seek truth, understanding, & proof of the paranormal by any means necessary. Their primary focus is assisting familes that struggle with the paranormal in silence as they once did. Today their own trials & tribulations of the supernatural have become great testimonies as they move forward to assist their next client.
This Event is not for all ages.
You must be 18 Years or older to attend. Everyone will sign a waiver at the door. General Admission for this event is $40 per person. Includes all above listed activities from 800 PM to 10:30 PM.
VIP Packages are available at $60 per person. Includes all above listed activities & Extended Ghost Hunt from 11:00 PM to 1:00 AM Note: Only 10 VIP Packages will be sold.

Ticket Sales are NOT Refundable unless Event is Canceled by COPS Owners and/or Venue. Please Print Out Your Pay Pal Receipt & Bring it to the Event.

Note- Only 10 VIP Packages will be sold.

Mission Statement

We seek only truth, understanding, and proof of the paranormal. We achieve this through investigations, counsel, education, and experience. Our clients are of the highest importance.

We are much more than a team of Ghost Hunters! We seek out truth in every case that we accept. We are no longer able to accept every case that is requested of us. Although, we respond to only the most extreme of cases. We are not here to judge you or discredit your experiences. However, we will try to find logic & reason with your paranormal claims. 

General Admission- Sale Price ONLY $25 

 

Reg. Price $40 Per Person 

 

Includes all above listed activities 8 p.m. to 10:30 p.m.

Ticket Sales are NOT Refundable unless Event is Canceled by COPS Owners and/or Venue. Please Print Out Your Pay Pal Receipt & Bring it to the Event

Wookie? or Whacky? A New Theory THE ELECTRIC UNIVERSE + A Conference in June @ Riverview Sheraton

It's something called The Thunderbolts Project.
Never heard of it?
Neither did yours truly until just now after fixing a network connection glitch to track down that Anonymous YouTube video posted here earlier for public information purposes after not seeing any links to the original upload with second-hand reporting by local news.
Anyhow - and moving forward as they say - here's an introduction word-for-word from the homesite https://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/2015/12/30/eu2016-home-page/ 
Are you all ready for an interdisciplinary adventure or not??
. . . only if you are not a certainty-junky
Simplicity has always been a trademark of progress in the sciences. A new theory will be described as “elegant” when it can explain a broader range of data while reducing complications, exceptions, and contradictions.
Of course, the word is too easily used and abused today. The Big Bang theory could only be made elegant by answering contradictions already cited by well-qualified critics. Oversimplification is not elegant. Failure to see contradictory evidence is not elegant either.
The popular mathematical contrivance called a Black Hole is not elegant either, since it neither addresses nor even acknowledges the electrified plasma environment of galaxy formation. And the imagined thermonuclear fusion at the core of the Sun is assuredly not elegant, since it leaves the most compelling features of the Sun unexplained.
A strategic use of language will often distort the distinction between real progress and imaginary progress in science. But for anyone exploring the Electric Universe paradigm, the principle of theoretical “elegance” is well worthy of consideration. It is an acid test.

That is why we’ve selected “Elegant Simplicity” as the theme of our upcoming EU2016 conference.
Join us in an interdisciplinary adventure, June 17-19 in Phoenix, Arizona. Discover the universal role of the electric force, from microcosm to macrocosm. And find your own connections within a movement that is shaping the future of science.

Published on Feb 13, 2016 [Video below] It's 12:58

A team of astronomers using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey observed quasars behaving in manner that completely upends conventional theory. Using images from the Pan-STARRS survey, the scientists identified 1000 objects that appeared to vary in brightness over a period of just 10 years. Among these objects were a total of five galaxies that the team witnessed shape-shifting into quasars in a seemingly impossibly short period of time. The team also recorded a total of a dozen quasars “shutting down” in a period of hundreds of days, rather than the hundreds of thousands of years required by standard theory.

Given this situation, Dr. Tom Wilson explores some of the psychological reasons why certain beliefs endure even in the face of falsifying evidence.

Tom Wilson: The Siren Song of Certainty | EU2015: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DB4a4...
Donald Scott: Quasars in an Electric Universe | Space News: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmODE...

****A MESSAGE TO ARIZONA******* From Anonymous

In the interest of public information here is the Anonymous video referred to in reports.

Article in East Valley Tribune at 6:30 a.m. today http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/local/mesa/article_140d8180-d70a-11e5-b74c-57ff4384bf07.html 

FYI: The Mayor + The Mesa City Council > Tell Me Again How's That Supposed To Work?

According to The City of Mesa webpage , Mesa operates under a charter form of government with citizens electing a mayor and six councilmembers to set policy for the City.

Mesa's councilmembers serve terms of four-years, with three members being elected every two years. The mayor is elected at-large every four years. The mayor and council are elected on a non-partisan basis. The vice mayor is selected by the City Council.
The Mesa City Council believes that its people not leaders, are what makes a City great and actively works to encourage citizen participation in the decision-making process. That's the lip-service out in the public domain [italics for emphasis by your MesaZona blogger].

Hello! Mesa! WE HAVE A PROBLEM: Less than 50% of registered voters actually turned out to vote on issues in 2014 and less than 28% turned out to vote for the mayor and City Council members in the last primary election [the same seats to be filled in this year's election]:

Voter Turnout Statistics [from the city clerk's office for 2014]]
Voter Registration 222,290
Ballots Cast 96,646
Voter Turnout 43.5%
Voter Turnout Statistics [in the August 28, 2012 Primary Election Results]
Voter Registration 223,295
Ballots Cast 61,879
Voter Turnout 27.7%

• Mayor Scott Smith got 53,302
• District #1 Councilmember Dave Richins got 10,511
• District #2 Councilmember Alex Finter got 8,668
• District #3 Councilmember Dennis Kavanagh got 6,227

Mayor John Giles is up for re-election after one year in office.
City Councilmember terms expire in District #1, District #2 and District #3.

How to Have a Good Conversation | Celeste Headlee | TEDxCreativeCoast

Published on May 7, 2015. 228,190 views to date. Run time:12:07

When your job hinges on how well you talk to people, you learn a lot about how to have great conversations – and most of us don’t converse very well. A great conversation requires a balance between talking and listening. This balance is important because bad communication leads to bad relationships, at home, at work, everywhere.

Celeste Headlee has worked in public radio since 1999, as a reporter, host, and correspondent. She was the Midwest Correspondent for NPR before becoming the co-host of the PRI show The Takeaway. She also guest hosted a number of NPR shows including Tell Me More, Talk of the Nation, Weekend All Things Considered, and Weekend Edition.

Celeste holds multiple degrees in music and still performs as a professional opera singer. She's the granddaughter of composer William Grant Still, the Dean of African American Composers. Celeste is an avid hiker, biker, paddler and dog walker.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

For an  an interactive transcript of this talk please use the underlined link

Play Ball! Athletics > The Boys of Spring Training + A Female Sports Reporter

Once Upon A Time Long Ago  . . .  isn't that how some great fiction and high-imagination stories used to start?-  in a place called Rendezvous Park in downtown Mesa there were  what's now called "neighborhood recreation facilities" -  a swimming pool and a baseball field. While that land was "cleared" to build the City-owned Mesa Amphitheater and Mesa Convention Center and the adjacent Phoenix-Mesa Marriott Hotel with a large tract of vacant property now called Site 17 "ripe for development", sports and athletics have morphed into multi-million dollar powerhouse investments.
That didn't happen in a blink-of-the-eye on the playing field of economic development. Nor did it come from City Hall's so-called "vital industries of opportunity" H.E.A.T. [Healthcare, Education, Aerospace/Defense, Tourism and Technology] - there is no S for Sports in that industries line-up from the self-named "professional economic developers' who came up with the acronym HEAT that did not include sports.Sports = BIG BU$INE$$.accounting for a large chunk of revenues to city coffers and it's not "chump change". [see other posts on this site for details]

Readers may want some context for today's post about the renaming of a street [photo by Bill Mitchell featured in this report by Kim Contreras yesterday in Oakland Clubhouse.
It took place at the newly-remodeled last year Hohokam Park.
Originally constructed in 1997 as the new spring home of the Chicago Cubs, the city of Mesa contributed $17.5 million toward the new renovations, with the Oakland A’s chipping in another $9.4 million.


Mayor John Giles and reporter Kim Contreras

The A’s signed a 20-year contract with the city of Mesa with two five-year options that could extend to 2045. A portion of the funds also were used to renovate the nearby Fitch Park baseball complex, which will serve as the year-round home for the A’s minor league training and player development operations.
Your MesaZona blogger first noticed Oakland A's reporter Kim Contreras's articles about spring training here in Mesa last year.

Yesterday she's back in Mesa and so is big-time baseball. She recalls a reaction from last year: . . . "On February 2, 2015, while doing one of my photo updates of the new facilities, I took 100 photos, and didn’t really look at details until I got home. That’s when I read the sign: “Welcome to the Lew Wolff Training Complex. Public Parking on 6th Place.” Ugh. This needed to changed. I had to say something. . . "
I approached the mayor of Mesa, Arizona – John Giles. I had never met him before last spring. . . There was nothing in it for him to even entertain my idea of changing the name of the road to anything but what it was. But he listened anyway.
At one point he reminded me that the Cubs had the same address for all their years at Fitch. I asked him how many championships the Cubs won during that time. We briefly discussed name options, . . Bottom line, it was clear that the mayor thought this could work. He said it would. But I’ve worked with enough elected officials to know that I don’t write in ink. . .
. . .  About a month ago I heard from the mayor and he said I would soon receive an invitation to the renaming of 6th Place. That was the first contact I’d had with him since the end of spring training – 10 months ago.
This afternoon, Tuesday, February 16, 2016, the unveiling of “Athletics Way” took place at the north east corner of Center Street and – what use to be – 6th Place.

That's the reporter's story about the renaming of a street in Mesa. Here's the press release from the City of Mesa yesterday:

Mesa street rename to Athletics Way

Post Date:02/16/2016 2:49 PM

A sign unveiling was held today to honor the return of Spring Training.  Sixth Place that runs along the practice fields for the Oakland A’s was renamed to Athletics Way.

accompanied with an image of "the boys" from City Hall and A's owner Michael Crowley.

Here's a link to the whole media-play page from the City of Mesa Newsroom >> http://www.mesanow.org/article.php?id=1596